Looking after Alice
by Ms. Topaz
Summary: Who exactly was that vampire who transformed Alice before James got to her? What were his motives? How did he feel about our favoirte psychic? Find out!


**Okay. I got this idea. I know it's been done before, but I'm trying to get rid of writer's block, so…here goes.**

Journal of John Nelson

February 29, 1917

2:56 a.m.

It is late, but I feel as though I must record my feelings. Otherwise I might explode.

This morning I looked through the thick glass window at the small thrashing figure inside. I ran my fingers through my hair and leaned my forehead gently against the cool metal of the door. Why me? Why is this crazy, undeniably attractive girl my patient? My thoughts whirled faster then the girl inside those padded walls.

Ah! My girl! My Mary Alice! A small spark of light in my dark, inhuman life. So slender and beautiful and sweet smelling! God, does she smell good! Like strawberries and freshly mown grass. In any other setting she would smell like perfection, but the burning smell of antiseptic lessens her quality. I could hear her pulse pounding under her delicate skin, even with the door closed and her arms wrapped around her thin body. It's muffled, but it's there. I closed my eyes against the surge of venom pooling in my throat.

_Thump._

Irresistibly my eyes opened and are drawn to the tiny, extinguished whirlwind of black hair and white canvas, the source of the noise. At last, Alice had tired herself out and collapsed onto the floor. When she fights the jacket, it always exhausts her. Thank god she's still, for, right now, she needs the rest.

I watched her all last night, and she didn't sleep a wink. She just…sat there on her cot for half the night, just staring. When I walked into her room ("Cell" would be a more accurate description) to give her the nightly medications, apparently I broke the spell. She stared up at me blankly and asked, "Jasper?"

"No." I said gently. "I'm John. Remember, Mary Alice?"

But she wouldn't reply. "Jasper? Jasper?" That's all she said for the rest of the night. Just, "Jasper?"

I looked at Alice's charts again. I could never get enough of learning about her, and even though I'd read this thin sheet of paper exactly 628 times the pain pierced my dead heart every time. She was dumped here several years ago after her parents claimed she was having 'catatonic flashes' that they couldn't- or wouldn't? - deal with. They couldn't deal with her eccentricities, so they put her in our hands.

After a minute or so of relative peace-down the hall I could see and hear a poor soul getting dragged, kicking and screaming, down the hall to the electroshock chamber- Alice wiggled and sat up from her slump on the ground. She opened her mouth, tilted her head so far back it touched the wall and let out a wild scream. Maybe it showed my level of infatuation with this frail human, but even that scream sounded beautiful in my ears. And I have excellent hearing.

She's started to stop pulling at the straightjacket, thank god. I hated to see her when she has those flashes where she doesn't know where she is, when she doesn't move or even react to electroshock treatments. Then I no longer see my unrequited love. I pressed my face against the glass, not feeling the cold against my hard skin.

Such an inner struggle! I wanted to end her plight right then and there, her wonderful mind trapped deep inside an insane outer core. I know she's not insane like everybody says. I wanted to sink my razor sharp teeth into her soft flesh, and to drink from the elixir of her blood. I wanted to bite her neck, and then kiss the pool of blood that would well up. I wanted to feel the warmth of her blood run down my throat.

When she was more verbal, when she first came here, she would tell me about her images.

"One day I'll be out of these walls. I'll be able to fly free." She whispered one night, far past her bedtime. "I'll be free. Freer then a bird. I'll have no more iron bars surrounding me, restricting my movements."

She used to be so eloquent! I mourned her melodic speaking voice; now she will talk in naught but short, often one-word sentences. She wants food: "I'm hungry." If she needs to use the facilities: "Bathroom. Now." I tried to get her to speak, for months after she stopped talking, but I can barely get words out of her mouth.

And that deep, insightful mind is trapped in a crazy layer of random flashes. Her visions, she called them. When she gets them…she just shuts down. Whatever she's doing, she'll just stop and drop it and stare blankly. Like she's been burned, but hasn't felt the heat yet. They last from five seconds to over five minutes.

I have seen her works when she was allowed to draw and paint. This was before the orderlies banned her from painting. They said she was promoting witchcraft. But don't believe it. They were wonderful. So full of life and detail! She once, long ago, drew a picture of a man so perfect, so flawless; I couldn't believe that my little Mary Alice had drawn such an angel. He was perfection incarnate, with blonde hair and bright eyes.

I was going to put it up on the wall with some of the other pieces of artwork that some of the patients had drawn, for all to admire, but when I tried to take it from her she screamed and nearly tore the picture in two in her efforts to keep it away from me. I let go of the paper, and she cradled the picture in her arms like a small girl does her favorite doll, crooning a strange and haunting melody to it.

I was watching this oddly fascinating scene when she looked up at me and glared. I reached out my hand, sheathed in a glove so that she wouldn't feel the cold of my skin, but she shook her head and stood, stretching as high as she could. "No. Jasper and I will walk on our own, thank you."

My stilled heart nearly tore in two at that refusal of my affection! I had always been her favorite, her companion of sorts, the person she would scream for when they tried to drag her away for her electroshock treatments. "John! Save me! John!" She would cry out. "No! No!" She would reach out to me as the underlings grabbed her and pulled her down the hall. She would count on me, for whenever I could I kept her away from that horrid room. She wasn't crazy, and they couldn't shock it out of her. It never makes a difference.

I admit I am jealous of a man. No, a boy! A boy that may not-no, probably does not-exist! Mary Alice's mind has made up a fictional savior to help her out of this hell-hole, and 'he' brings out the green-eyed monster in me! But she does not need a fiction hero: she has me.

I! The vampire! The undead! The immortal, the glorious! Jealous of a mere boy! I am disgusted to admit it, even as I write upon this page.

It is unnecessary pain. The administrators of the treatments are sociopaths: they laugh when my Mary Alice writhes in pain, strapped to the chair. But whenever I can manage it, I save her. I lie, blatantly. I tell them that she is sick, that she just had a treatment, anything that is believable. Being unbearably handsome doesn't hurt my believability, of course.

Whatever it takes, I'll say it to get her out of getting shocked. But I'm running out of excuses. If I'm going to keep her with me, I'm going to have to change her soon.

Her screams wouldn't be noticed. I could bring her up to the psychiatric wing, where all the patients are in various states of psychosis and shriek and call out for invisible people constantly. Her voice would blend into the discord perpetually blanketing that corner of the hospital. And after a couple of days she would be better then new. We could start our life together.

I'll do it tomorrow. I swear to it.

I'll have to take extreme precautions. I would do anything for her, anything! I'd jump off a building if she wanted me to: it wouldn't hurt me a bit, but the basic sacrifice is there.

I would give up my forever.

I would capture the Moon and set it in a ring.

I would even cease to be immortal if that meant that I could spend my life with Mary Alice.


End file.
